Wireless Internet is slowly becoming more common in America. Coffee shops offer it for free as a way to lure in custormers to sit and stay and keep buying Frapuccinos. Campuses are boasting their wireless capabilities to lure students. It’s even becoming a feature in cars. My hope is that in the future, these ideas will all be remembered like the 8-track.

Wireless high speed internet should spread across America as soon as possible. Not just New York, not just L.A., but everywhere. Tech President proposes this in their petition on technology policy, saying that an “Internet Innovation and Investment Fund,” should be established and $20 billion set aside. They point out that this is just half the cost we spend on highways every year.

“Conservatives correctly observe that we treat telecom like a luxury, tax it like a sin, regulate it like a utility, and subsidize uncompetitive players and anachronistic technologies. Tax policies discourage broadband adoption, regulatory policies create barriers to investment, and government actions limit competitive opportunities for new entrants and the dissemination of information in the marketplace.”

I think that if highway budgets are halved, we are compromising safety. Maybe we should look somewhere else for money. Last time I checked the economy wasn’t giving away much of it. Maybe we need to get the taxpayers’ heads in the right place. That shifts the question from how the government will pay for this to how we can get the public to support it.

There are not any clear answers here but plenty more possibilities. Maybe an ad campaign would work to motivate people towards this. We could create public support by laying out the possibilities. People don’t want to be taxed for a dime more than they already are so our government must begin a search for the best ideas. This is supposed to be the era of change, so I think it is a distinct possibility that the nation would hop aboard if the idea’s sensible. Anybody? Just remember we are pretty broke…